Rejoice

by Karen Kingsbury

  Brooke reached up and turned off the light. “G’night, Ash.”

  “Good night.” Ashley lifted her head. “Thanks for talking to me.”

  “I meant every word.”

  An hour later, when everyone else in the room was making soft snoring sounds, Brooke rolled onto her back and stared at the dark ceiling. She couldn’t sleep, couldn’t get thoughts of Peter out of her mind. It was one o’clock, midnight in Bloomington. Before she’d left for New York, she’d called Peter and told him about the trip.

  “They’d love you to be there.” She’d tried to keep her tone even, nothing pushy or forceful.

  “I appreciate that.” Peter sounded distant, his words more formal than before.

  Brooke hadn’t known what to say. She dug her elbows into her knees and pressed the receiver to the side of her face. God, give me the words . . . “So . . . would you think about coming? Just for a few days?”

  “Listen, Brooke.” He dropped the pretense and sighed. “I couldn’t go to the wedding with you. Everyone would think that . . .”

  Her heart skipped a beat. “That what?”

  “That we were working things out.”

  “Would that be so bad, Peter? Couldn’t we try? Pastor Mark knows a counselor who—”

  “No!” He muttered something under his breath. “I’m sorry, Brooke. My mind’s made up.”

  The conversation felt like poison to her system, and no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t shake it, couldn’t rid herself of the memory. The thing was, something magical happened at weddings. Brooke had noticed it at Kari and Ryan’s wedding last fall, and at a handful of other weddings before that.

  As the couple were exchanging their vows, married people throughout the church couldn’t help but remember how it felt when they were the couple standing before God and man, when they were the ones promising forever to the person they’d fallen in love with.

  Brooke liked to look around at weddings and watch the way couples sat a little closer as the ceremony went on, how they held hands and exchanged what they thought were private glances and furtive smiles. A wedding was the ultimate reminder that when the smoke screen of busy schedules and demanding children and bill paying lifted, what still mattered was the bond between a husband and a wife and God himself.

  With all her heart, Brooke had hoped Peter would come, because maybe if he watched Luke and Reagan exchanging vows, he might find his way back. But with him a thousand miles away, there was no telling what he was thinking, or whether he would even care that she and the girls were gone.

  Still, no matter how bad things with Peter seemed, Brooke remained convinced that somehow God would bring them back together. Yes, her anger toward him flared every now and then, but she couldn’t stay hateful for long. Not when she spent most of her free time with Hayley. The child had an angel-like quality about her now, her eyes full of a contagious light and innocence. After a day with Hayley, Brooke’s heart simply was not capable of hating anyone or anything.

  Even Peter.

  In her old life, Brooke would’ve thought the situation with Peter through and known intellectually that her marriage was over. On paper, it looked that way. But she had a new way of looking at life now, through the eyes of a believing heart. Because of that, and because of what she’d seen modeled in her family, she knew one thing to be true about love.

  It was a decision, a choice.

  I believe that, God. . . . I’m willing to wait, to keep praying, keep begging you that Peter will change his mind. Whatever it takes, Lord. Touch him, reach him, make him want us again. Please . . .

  Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

  Despite the uncertainty and despair that sometimes welled within her, Brooke smiled. The verse was the same one that flashed in her head every time she prayed about Peter. “Okay, God,” she whispered. “I’m rejoicing.”

  Moments like this she understood what God was doing. He wanted her to rely on him, on his strength and grace and peace. Not just in a wishful sort of way, but for every moment, every breath. It was how she was surviving with Hayley, how she was able to lift her head off the pillow in light of Peter’s decision to divorce her. Her joy was no longer dependent on Hayley’s health or Peter’s love.

  It depended on God alone.

  And for that reason the joy she felt was as real as life itself.

  If Peter didn’t want to be with her right now, so be it. She would bend the ear of the one who knew her husband best, the one who was even now healing her younger daughter from an accident that should’ve killed her. The one who was not only helping her through the ordeal, but allowing her joy in the process.

  If God could heal Hayley’s brain, certainly he could heal Peter’s heart. And one day she would tell anyone who would listen that God Almighty hadn’t worked just one miracle in her life.

  He had worked two.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Something was wrong.

  Peter lay in bed and watched the comforter vibrate. Stop, he ordered it. Stop now! But the blanket kept moving, propelled by the way his body shook from head to foot. He looked at the clock. Midnight. So why was he shaking? Why was his body crying out for more pills? His routine hadn’t changed a bit from yesterday, had it?

  Home from work at eight o’clock. Three hours of pills and frozen pizza and SportsCenter, then a quick rinse off, another two pills and lights out. That was half an hour ago, but still Peter couldn’t fall asleep. The pills weren’t working as well as before; that had to be the reason.

  He held his breath and exhaled in a long burst. He couldn’t lay on his left side. In that position, every heartbeat ripped through his body, pounded through his veins and limbs, and straight into his brain. Boom . . . boom . . . boom . . . boom. Peter flipped onto his right side and felt the slightest relief. At least in this position his heartbeat was more subtle, less likely to keep him awake.

  But lying on his right side he could see out the window, and that meant watching the strange movement of a mass of gnarled tree branches outside his apartment window. They’d never scared him before, but tonight . . . tonight they seemed haunted, moved by some supernatural force, by a wind that wasn’t causing a stir anywhere but outside his window.

  “Stop!” He hissed the word in the direction of the branches. “I’m not afraid of you!”

  His brain was responsible for the mess he was in. If only he could think about something else, replace his irrational fears with a different set of thoughts, then his nerves were bound to calm down. Yes, the mind was a powerful thing however it was used. As long as he was thinking about the pills, about the bizarre scene outside his window, he couldn’t possibly find peace. But what else could he think about?

  Peter tapped his forehead and suddenly it hit him. His family! He could think about Brooke and Maddie and Hayley. They were in New York City, weren’t they? He closed his eyes and pictured Brooke pushing Hayley down the concourse in her special stroller, Maddie beside them, all three excited about the trip to Manhattan.

  His trembling settled some.

  The stimuli of taking Hayley on a trip like that could actually speed her healing process. He’d read case studies of that happening. Brooke had been right to make the effort and take her along. And Maddie—at five years old—was bound to get a kick out of New York at Christmastime.

  Christmastime?

  Peter’s eyes flew open. The girls would be gone for Christmas? The shaking grew worse again. Why hadn’t he thought about that? He’d told Brooke he didn’t want to go to Luke’s wedding, and that was still true. No point making people think he and Brooke had a chance.

  But he hadn’t realized he was going to miss the girls’ Christmas.

  A buzzing started in Peter’s brain, and he cursed himself. Stupid. Thinking about Brooke and the girls could never calm you down, he told himself. He was the bad guy, the one who had ruined everything. He’d done everything but lock the three of them in a car and push them over a c
liff. The buzzing grew louder and became a pain. An aching, throbbing pain.

  Then it spread.

  Down his face and along his throat, through his chest and deep into his heart.

  And there, for the first time since he’d moved out, he missed Brooke and the girls so much he could barely breathe, as if by thinking about them he had tapped into the single most obvious source of his pain. All along he’d thought the pain came from guilt. The certainty of knowing that Hayley would be fine today if he’d taken more interest in her safety that afternoon. The awareness that he’d walked out on his family long before moving his things into the apartment. But maybe at the root of all the desperate hurt was a single thorn. The thorn of wanting life the way it had been a year ago, back when he and Brooke still had a marriage to save.

  Peter sat straight up in bed and swung his feet onto the floor. His heart was racing now, shaking the same way his arms and legs shook. He flipped on the light and saw the bottle sitting on the table beside his bed. Not the plastic bag with a dozen pills for the day, but the entire bottle.

  In case he needed an extra dose.

  A thought hit him then. What if he didn’t need a pill to take away the pain? It was like a splinter, wasn’t it? Festering and irritating the flesh around it, the resulting infection wouldn’t go away with a dozen weeks of antibiotics. No, it would only clear up one way.

  Remove the splinter.

  Okay, so what if his stubbornness was the splinter? What if the solution to his pain was to make things right with Brooke again? to run to her and apologize for everything he’d ever said or done, to get counseling for the two of them, to promise that no matter how hard things got, he would never, ever leave again?

  If she were there beside him, maybe the pain would go away all by itself.

  He stared at the bottle of pills and suddenly, in the recesses of his mind, he heard a strange voice, angry and hissing.

  You’re an idiot, Peter . . . an idiot! The dark words filled the center of his being, and he jerked his head first one way, then the other.

  “Who said that?” He looked out the window; the tree branches were moving again. Beyond them everything else on the street looked still. But not the branches outside his window.

  The strange voice laughed at him, a slow, evil laugh. Peter slid back against his headboard, so at least his back would be covered. Then he pulled the covers up to his neck and stared at the bottle of pills.

  Go ahead. Take two. No, take more than two . . . take them all. That would stop the pain for good, wouldn’t it?

  “Brooke!” He closed his eyes and whispered her name. Even though he’d avoided her as much as possible since Hayley’s accident, when he did see her, he couldn’t help noticing that she was filled with some kind of . . . some sort of peace. There was no other way to describe it. A peace that seemed almost phony.

  And something else.

  She’d been happy. Not the kind of happy she used to get when she’d receive a compliment from a patient or when she figured out a particularly difficult diagnosis. But a happiness that grew from inside her, maybe even as far inside as her soul.

  His hands were shaking so hard he could no longer hold the blanket up. Instead he tucked the edges in behind his shoulders and used his chin to keep it in place.

  You look like an idiot, Peter . . .

  The voice was back, and Peter’s eyes darted about the room. “Who are you?”

  You know who I am . . . you work for me. The voice laughed. Brooke and the girls would make things worse, not better. Every day, every hour, looking at that little girl and knowing it was your fault. All your fault. It is your fault, Peter. You can’t run from the truth. It’s all your fault.

  “It wasn’t my fault!” Peter raised his voice. “She was supposed to wear a life jacket . . . she knew that!”

  The evil laugh grew louder. Take the pills, Peter. That’s the only certain relief, and you know it. Take all of them. Then you can go to sleep and never wake up again.

  “No!” His heart was beating faster than he’d ever felt it. He was panting to catch his breath, but he was determined to have the last word with the voice, whatever it was. “No, I don’t want that.” He began to cry, but nothing came from his eyes. “I want help!”

  The voice was silent.

  Peter waited, listening for the laugh, the taunting words. But they were gone. He let the covers fall back to his waist and stared at his hands. They were shaking so badly, his forearms hurt.

  His eyes found the pills again. Maybe he’d forgotten to take the eleven-o’clock dose. He took the bottle, steadied his hands enough to twist the lid off, and tried to pour two into his hand. Instead, a pile of pills landed in the center of his palm.

  Peter stared at them and wondered how it would feel.

  The pain would be gone in less than a minute; he was sure about that. But then a few minutes after that he would fall asleep, and most likely that would be the end. They would find him in his apartment sometime in the next few days, after he didn’t show up for work the day after Christmas. By then his body would be rotted; they’d have to have a closed-casket funeral for sure.

  His eyes moved to the full bottle of water next to the spot where the pills had been. He could do it, couldn’t he? He could end it all and never have to explain to Brooke why their marriage fell apart, never have to figure out a way to make a life for himself between visits with Maddie and Hayley. And never again would he have to see his once bouncy, cheery little daughter strapped to her wheelchair, brain damaged.

  He looked at the pills; his resistance was wearing down.

  Why not do it? He would die someday anyway, right? How good would life be when he needed painkillers to get through an hour of it? Dying would be blissful relief compared to the constant anxiety of not knowing when the medicine would wear off, not knowing where he’d be—with a patient or in a meeting with the other doctors—when his body began to tingle and shake and scream for relief.

  He reached for the water bottle, popped it open with his teeth, and then sifted the pills about in his hand. Fifty pills at least—definitely enough to end his misery. For a moment, he hesitated. If he was really going to do it, shouldn’t he leave a note, some sort of final parting words for Maddie and Hayley?

  A picture filled his mind.

  Hayley strapped to her wicker wheelchair, her head and mouth hanging to one side, a steady drip of drool falling onto her shirt, her hands contorted, turned outward.

  No, there would be no letter. Parting words could never excuse his behavior, the way he’d allowed her to fall into the pool that horrible Saturday. If only God had been real . . . if only he’d sent angels to catch Hayley or cause him to sense her danger, the way people in those miracle shows sometimes sensed things.

  But no, God wasn’t real. And if he wasn’t real, heaven wasn’t real. Hell, either. So the pills were the perfect answer, weren’t they? A chance to stop shaking once and for all, to get sleep that wouldn’t last merely a few hours. But sleep that would last forever.

  He lifted the handful of pills to his mouth, dumped them past his lips and onto his tongue. Words seemed to match the rhythm of his heart, beat for beat.

  Sorry, girls . . . sorry, girls . . . sorry, girls.

  He brought the water bottle to his mouth and had it to his lips, had it tilted and ready to down the deadly dose of pills, when without warning he gagged and a wave of vomit came spewing up through his throat and out of his mouth, taking every one of the pills with it.

  The mess landed on his bedspread. And before he could do anything about it, another wave followed, and another, and another. When finally his stomach stopped convulsing, Peter stared at the dozens of pills in the mess and realized something.

  He wasn’t shaking.

  But he hadn’t been sick, hadn’t felt ill or nauseous, not even a little. How could his body have vomited right then, at that exact moment?

  God?

  The silent word echoed in his mind, sendi
ng reverberations through his heart and soul and veins.

  I AM, son. . . . I AM WHO I AM.

  This voice was different than the previous one. Quiet and gentle and strong all at the same time. If Peter hadn’t known better, he’d think himself the victim of some heavenly melodrama. The voice of evil versus the voice of good.

  Not so much because he believed, but because he wanted to hear the good voice again, Peter said, “God . . . is that you?”

  I AM WHO I AM, son. Repent and be saved.

  Two colleagues had told him the pills could do this. Take them long enough and you’ll hallucinate when you need a fix. Your head could be filled with strange sights and sounds that weren’t really happening. But something about this experience was different, real.

  Peter wasn’t sure, but it almost seemed as if God himself had saved him from certain death, maybe even caused the pills to rush out of his mouth moments before Peter would’ve swallowed them. Again Peter studied his hands and arms, even his legs, and he slid out from the dirty sheets, amazed.

  He wasn’t shaking even a little. Not a single pill had made it down his throat, but still he wasn’t shaking.

  It was a miracle.

  But . . . if it was a miracle, then somebody had to work it. And that somebody just might be God, right?

  I AM WHO I AM, son.

  Peter backed up and pressed himself against the wall next to his bed. I am who I am? Wasn’t that the biblical name for God that had most impressed Peter? I AM.

  Back before Hayley’s drowning, Peter had clung tightly to that name. What more could anyone say after that? A name like I AM meant that God always was, always is, and would always be at the center of life. It meant he was everywhere, working his will in every situation. And it meant his word was perfect and true, with no beginning and no end.

  But if that was the name Peter appreciated most, then no wonder it had come to him just now. It must’ve been a figment of his imagination, a subconscious way of finding peace in the wake of the evil voice.